Wednesday, July 27, 2005  12:54 pm 

Aliens of Invention

Felix Kubin- Hit Me Provider

Hit me provider (Internet sadist song about te wholes in tissues of flesh. ‘Hit me Provider, I lost my mouse, oh no, I’ve got a Loch im Gewebe.de’) according to his website.

Brutalist synthpop I say, and genius at that, Felix Kubin, ruler of the Syndicate of Counter-Noise, scrawls the line between Quintron’s sleazy organ swamp and Add (n) to (x) well, sleazy organ condo, fencing a murky province where each basement hides a mad scientist experimenting with life and machines and waves and death and the vacuum, ah, the vacuum, what does its lack of everything hide? Maybe you should visit Gagarin Records to find out.

Let this be a cautionary tale, Matki Wandalki (Vandal Mothers in Polish) is what happens to German teenagers who dare treading the esoteric world of Einsturzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle at the tender age of 12, their eyes stop blinking and their fingers mutate into plugs that when inserted, of course sexually, into electricity sockets, can give you a nasty and addictive zap shock even if you are miles and years away. Their smile is scary like one of those mechanical fortune tellers in the circus and the orchestra of their sketchy Vannierian merry-go-round is the music of magic hand movements, not of the Harry Potter kind, Dr Strange, more like, mesmeric metronomes and illuminati rendezvouses in dark alleys and eerie dungeons.

I am halfway through Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, if there ever was a soundtrack for the ambience of the corridors of ”the White Visitation”, this is it…

Felix Kubin- Lumiere Belge

”Everywhere are archways, grottoes, plaster floral arrangements, walls hung in threadbare velvet or brocade. Balconies give out at unlikely places, overhung with gargoyles whose fangs have fecthed not a few newcomers nasty cuts on the head. Even in the worst rains, the monsters only just manage to drool- the rainpipes feeding them are centuries out of repair, running crazed over slates and beneath eaves, past cracked pilasters, dangling Cupids, terracotta facing on every floor, along with velvederes, rusticated joints, pseudo-italian columns, looming minarets, leaning crooked chimneys- from a distance no two observers, no matter how close they stand, see quite the same thing in that orgy of self-expression, added to by each succeeding owner, until the present War’s requisitioning. ”

And if Mr. Kubin rules over the counter-noise underworld, then I guess his nemesis in the clash for global domination would be Black Dice, a truly anomalous force that covers its alien drone landscapes with clean sheets of noise like an invisible lady putting the washing out to dry. In some cases the only dynamics in their songs are seemingly random currents of wind shaking that almost unbearable whiteness.

This is confrontational music that forces the listener to engage at an abstract level, it is difficult, and sometimes would feel better suited for a museum than for your bedroom. But if modern art has taught us something, it is that the bedroom can in itself be (and be in) a museum, indeed, the change is not of location but of mind-frame.

Taking all that into account I would say the song I am posting today, included in their lavishly packaged 7” ‘Peace in the Valley / Ball’, released by Three One G Records, is simply dirty sex. The sheer intensity and simplicity of this outburst of frantic energy is breathtaking, enjoy it.

Black Dice- Peace in the Valley

Black Dice’s Broken Ear Record, comes out in DFA/ Fat Cat in September. It sounds like an expedition of creatures from other dimension who had just arrived to our planet and tried to play and sing rock and roll human-style without quite having the necessary organs to do so, it’s different from anything I have heard and very thrilling too, the feeling is there, the music is…well, you tell me about it, the music is…out there. It’s not easy, no, that would be strange, we’re happier this way.

labels >> xxjfg